I am sitting on the edge of the fountain in the square in front of the church of Santo Spirito where the Sunday market is going on. I just had breakfast at my favorite local bar, Cafe Oltrarno, where the coffee and chocolate cornettos (croissants) are my solace and treat for getting through another week of political craziness in the States.
My Italian friends from Florence are akin to the residents of the Berkshires in their politics—Tuscany is quite liberal—and our conversation over dinner last night was similar to any you would experience in Egremont. The difference is that while they think the Trump administration’s policies and prejudices are horribly changing Europe and the world, perhaps for decades, they don’t seem to have the consistent angst of many Americans.
This is perhaps because they feel a distance from America, physically as well as politically, so that the daily actions of Trump and his minions are not in their face every day in a constant drumbeat of horrors. They get the news, although many feel the media reports are not particularly factual, but they are not immersed in the details of Musk’s recent firings or the closings of the VA’s mental health facilities or Trump’s actions concerning the Kennedy Center.
There is a lot to be said for this, since so many Americans are tuning out from the daily news to save their mental health. My friends and relatives who are psychiatrists and therapists tell me that virtually all of their analytical patients have been very much affected by the current state of the nation, and many have somewhat dropped out of political involvement.
I guess this is understandable, since there seems to be a belief by Democrats and others on the left that they don’t know what to do to stop what they think is the fast crawl towards authoritarianism. Certainly there are lots of lawyers and others around the country fighting to halt the attempted legal coup of American ideals, but we are all worried that Trump may just disobey court orders and the Supreme Court will not effectively stop him from doing so. Vice President JD Vance and others in the administration have bragged that we are in a “post-Constitutional” world, and Trump’s comments and disdain for the judicial system (those judges who rule against him) show he has abandoned his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”
Italians can’t understand where the Democrats are in all this. They know that the Republicans control the House and Senate and that the Supreme Ciurt is divided six to three in favor of conservative judges, but they hear nothing about any plans, programs, or politicians who have any platform to rally the opposition.
I have no response since I don’t really have any answer except to say that our media and the world is fixated on Trump and his daily ramblings to the detriment of covering anyone else. That is really a lame response on my part, but as a lawyer involved in anti-Trump litigation for the last five years, I realize that the legal system is slow and cumbersome and doesn’t provide the permanent, prompt relief many of us need and want.
The way to stop Trump is simple: Fight him in the courts and mobilize to develop policies and spokesmen and -women to change the composition of the House and Senate in two years. Easy to say but hard to do. The Democrats have some very smart, talented politicians, but they seem to have almost no voice in the news compared to the daily outrages committed by the administration. Craziness sells papers.
I do wish that there was more direction and developed strategy that could capture the imagination of those opposing the administration and drawing together those who oppose him. Clearly the Republican legislators have sold their soul to the devil in order to be reelected—and in so doing virtually violate their oath of office everyday. What surprises me is how many of my conservative colleagues are opposed to the president’s policies and attempts to change the direction of the nation, from bullying law firms to closing government agencies and backing Putin. These are natural allies for the Democrats based on certain shared ideals.
According to recent polling, Trump’s approval is dropping quickly. There seems to be is a large part of the nation that wants to fight against many of his recent actions, but so far there seems to be difficulty in organizing such a broad-based resistance into a politically powerful entity. Politics is tough work, but if not now, when?
We are a democracy; we were dumb enough to vote him in knowing full well who and what he was. No one who voted could say they didn’t know what he was like or what he wanted to do. If you stuck your head in the sand or were willing to accept a wannabe-self-proclaimed king with the morals and political and economic ability of an alley cat, so be it. You got him. Are you satisfied with his governance? Did you vote for Musk and possibly the most incompetent cabinet in national history? How about a Health and Human Services head who doesn’t believe in vaccines, or an education secretary who is preparing to abolish her department?
How do you like what his tariffs, mercuric decisions, and economic and political ignorance are doing to your pension plan, your crop and grocery prices, America’s fisheries,, the VA and other government services, the overall economy, and America’s reversal of hundreds of years of championing democracies and fighting dictators? If this is for you, so be it. For the rest of us who are proud of America and what she stands for, we will not give up opposing his ignorant, antidemocratic vision of a racist, mysogenistic Trump kingdom with no respect for anyone but his rich cronies. While the Constitution and the law work (so far), the way to get rid of this menace is to deny him the rubber stamp Republican Congress whose members have completely abrogated their duties and their individual oaths of office and to show these petty autocrats that the American people still believe in democracy, our Constitution, and the ideals embossed on the Statue of Liberty.
As the Italians say, basta!
